The training of A.I. and machine learning models is, in the technical vocabulary of the field, a problem of credit assignment [1]. The entire achievement of a machine learning training algorithm lies in accurately tracing the myriad miniscule connections — assigning credit — to those features of the input data responsible for achieving each output target in its training data and targets.
It would be ironic then if, tasked with assigning credit to their inputs for their outputs, A.I. modellers should baulk and call that too daunting a challenge.
It is not necessary to achieve a great degree of accuracy, or timeliness or even consistency in assigning credit to content creators and IP holders whose property has been used to train models. A little effort to provide something that is half accurate most of the time would be a helpful start.
It is not necessary to invent a new compensation model, or a new process for registering the interests and contact details of IP owners. The music industry designed and implemented solutions for this problem over a century ago. Without the aid of A.I. Or a computer.
There is such a thing as legalized robbery. For instance, loan sharking used to be legal, but it was still robbery even when it was legal. We prefer to make such things illegal because it is wrong to let those with the will to do so to take advantage of people over whom they have an advantage of, for instance, physical strength.
In commerce, strength is largely financial, partly political. The bigger, better-connected company is immensely more powerful than the individual content creator. Just as with SLAPP cases and with libel laws, the legal battle is too one-sided to even contemplate.
The UK consultation on IP and A.I. provides a unique opportunity to develop and implement a far better vision. The relationship between A.I. developers and IP holders can and should be a positive, mutually beneficial, symbiotic relationship.
A.I. certainly depends, utterly, on IP creators. If the A.I. developer monetizes whilst the IP holder is left with nothing that would be parasitic and destructive[2], not symbiotic. If an algorithm and system is implemented to reasonably share with IP holders fair recompense for their works' contribution to A.I. output, the relationship could be symbiotic, mutually beneficial, and even a virtuous circle of increasing benefit to both. Not to mention the rest of us.
[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=back+propagation+as+an+algorithm+for+credit+assignment
[2] https://www.inet.ox.ac.uk/news/new-study-reveals-impact-of-chatgpt-on-public-knowledge-sharing